Iron Man 3, Marvel and DC Comics

Yes, I, Pastor Timothy, dove into the Iron Man 3 opening weekend with Redeemer Christian Fellowship’s youth group on Saturday. Jody Harris, the de facto leader of the youth group, given that he is the father of both Justin and Gavin, has been educating me on Iron Man for the past several months.

What I have learned is that Iron Man is part of the Marvel Comic world. I know some of my readers are clueless about the Marvel Comic world just as I was up until about three months ago when Jody loaned me the DVD’s of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and the all important Avengers. But I’m getting up to speed on it and found that there really is a difference between the Marvel Comic world and DC Comics world.

Babalucy, bear with me on this. I might find a point here.

What is the difference between these two comic worlds? Marvel remembers that they are actually comics, whereas DC Comics takes itself far too seriously. DC Comics is the world of Batman, Superman, more Batman, and more Batman to come, followed by even more Batman and Superman. I’m sure there are others in the DC Comics world, but those two heroes the main ones.

Batman, and the forthwith coming movie about Superman, The Man of Steel, are far more serious and macabre in their treatment of their characters. We are talking about serious seriousness! The people at DC Comics don’t want you to think for a moment that their characters are actually from the land of (ahem), make believe. Hence, see Jody’s illustrationbelow. Batman is all serious in his destruction of the Joker, whereas Iron Man enjoys the fact that he is a super hero and loves to have fun with it.

Iron Man is much more fun to be around. And the Joker, he supposed to tell jokes now and then? Hardly funny at all. He’s just mean and ugly.

That is the real difference between the two worlds. Batman and Superman think of themselves as really serious. Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Spider Man and Captain America all remember that while they are saving the world, an occasional joke or laugh goes a long way.

This perhaps is the reason that Iron Man 3 opened with such success this past weekend. It opened as the second largest box office ever! The largest box office draw was last summers The Avengers, which is a movie about how all the Marvel super heroes come together to fight off evil. According to Foxnews:

“Iron Man 3” had the second-biggest domestic debut ever, behind the $207.4 million start over the same weekend last year for “The Avengers,” which teamed Downey’s Stark with other Marvel Comics heroes. The new sequel surpassed the $169.2 million opening for 2011’s “Harry Potter” finale, the previous second-place debut.

This large box office success could be because the movies tend to be family oriented. While you wouldn’t want to take a 5-year-old, a 15-year-old would love it. I also know for certain that a 5-year-old needs to wait and see the movie, buying the action figures of Iron Man is still high on his list. Just ask my sons.

All this to say that I really enjoyed the movies, getting to know the Marvel Comic world and reuniting with my favorite childhood Marvel figure: the Hulk. In the Avengers, he is my favorite super hero.

3 thoughts on “Iron Man 3, Marvel and DC Comics”

I think they will develop him in the next few installments. I’m quite certain they won’t let the story line die since they went to such lengths to let us know that Bruce Wayne didn’t really die in a nuclear blast.

>”That is the real difference between the two worlds. Batman and Superman think of themselves as really serious. Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Spider Man and Captain America all remember that while they are saving the world, an occasional joke or laugh goes a long way.”<
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I'm by nature the Iron Man/Hulk/etc. type, but when I try to inject the occas. joke or laugh in saving-the-world discussions, some Batman/Superman type unctuously deplores my "sarcasm". 😦